Short Stories by Grey Wolf

How To Write Alternate HistoryNew Edition

Grey Wolf originally published his thoughts on writing Alternate History to his blog, as well as a few to the discussion website www.alternatehistory.com of which he was a member. In 2013 he collected them together in a book entitled "How To Write Alternate History" and used a photograph of a colliery head gear for its cover. It was quite a striking image, but in a sense was rather too generic for the book. However, he had other projects in hand, and focused on those in the next few years.

This period included working with the artist Derek Roberts, from Barking in east London, on book covers, initially a retro science-fiction feel for "Time of the Darkness" and then through "Never The Dawn", "Ten Naval Battles" and "The Slayer".

The next work they agreed was entitled "Tsar Michael The Great" which was initially intended to be the cover for a book of that name. The agreed design would show the chronological scope of that story, from bi-planes to jet fighters, and focus on the person of the Tsar, standing in front of a burning Russian city. Initial design studies focused on the four corner elements - the jet fighter, the bi-plane, the tank and the battleship. Two of them are shown below.

In 2016 Grey Wolf decided that the files for the book were not up to publication standard, but that the cover painting, now completed, would make a perfect new cover for "How To Write Alternate History" which had been needing a permanent and focused cover since its publication.

At the same time, Grey Wolf wanted to update the book, and to add a few more essays which he had unearthed, unpublished on his blog, but saved in his files. These included foci on Art and Architecture in Alternate History.

Earlier in 2017, these two trends came together. The updated text, with the new articles, and the new cover art, "Tsar Michael The Great" by Derek Roberts, were put together into a new edition of "How To Write Alternate History" published by Wolfian Press.

Grey Wolf Author

How To Write Alternate History is a series of articles by Grey Wolf, examining subjects such as the identity of man, whether man makes the weather, how the everyday in an alternate world is going to be changed and what names for music, vehicles, weapons etc would be different.